Spam is a type of malicious computer code. It is sometimes referred to as electronic junk mail or junk newsgroup postings. Spam is generally e-mail advertising for some product sent to a mailing list or newsgroup. It can be generally defined as unsolicited and unwanted e-mail or other electronic messages.
In addition to wasting people's time with unwanted e-mail, spam also consumes a lot of network bandwidth. Consequently, there are many organizations, as well as individuals, who have taken it upon themselves to fight spam with a variety of techniques. As the Internet is public, little can be done to prevent spam, just as it is impossible to prevent paper junk mail from arriving in a real mailbox. However, some online services have instituted policies to prevent spammers from spamming their subscribers. One such technique involves using disposable e-mail addresses.
A disposable e-mail address is an alias of a real e-mail account. Oftentimes a web page or other online service of some type requires divulging an e-mail address to complete the transaction or request. Rather than providing a real e-mail address, one or more aliases are created that are used to interact with the requesting entity. From the entity's perspective, the entity has a legitimate e-mail address through which it may communicate. As shown in FIG. 1 (Prior Art), e-mail using a disposable e-mail address is directed to a Disposable E-Mail server (DEA server) 110. In many senses a DEA server operates as any other e-mail server. E-mails directed to the server are routed to the correct recipient. DEA servers operate under the presumption that a single user may have several disposable e-mails. These e-mails may be active or be disabled to help in the control of spam. The DEA server, therefore, first determines 120 whether the disposable e-mail address has been disabled. Typically, upon verification that spam exists, the disposable e-mail address corresponding to the spam is shut down 130 or canceled, stopping the unwanted spam from arriving in the user's inbox. In situations where the disposable e-mail address is active, the DEA server looks up 150 the real or un-aliased e-mail address associated with the disposable e-mail address, and forwards 160 the message to the real e-mail account. Some DEA servers also perform anti-spam checks 140 or apply anti-spam filters. Typically, a disposable e-mail server is interposed between the user or client computer and the regular e-mail server, website, news server, or the like.
Since a single user can have multiple disposable e-mail addresses, having a compromised disposable e-mail address resulting in a deluge of spam or other malicious code does not carry with it the connotations of having to cancel the user's e-mail service, contacting the user's legitimate contacts with a new e-mail address, and so forth. The solution to the compromised e-mail address is as simple as disposing of the disposable e-mail address.
The use of disposable e-mail addresses is not without its challenges. Twenty websites necessitating e-mail addresses to complete the transaction may require the generation of twenty or more aliases. Creating a new disposable e-mail for each new interaction with a website can be time consuming and awkward. Typically, the creation of a new disposable e-mail address requires opening a new browser window and establishing the disposable e-mail account. Once completed the user must return to the original website to complete the transaction. Using a single disposable e-mail address for multiple sites diminishes its usefulness. When multiple entities or sites are associated with a single alias, and that alias is found to be the recipient of spam, it is unclear what website or entity is responsible for the spam. The spam is eliminated, but at the cost of severing communication with legitimate websites. The time consuming and efficient creation of disposable e-mail addresses has slowed their acceptance as a valuable tool in the fight against spam.
There remains a need to automate the generation of disposable e-mail addresses. The present invention addresses these and other problems, as well as provides additional benefits.